A judge in Fulton County, Georgia on Monday overturned the state’s six-week abortion ban, allowing the practice to resume and making it legal up to 22 weeks’ gestation.
The state law, known as the LIFE Act, was signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019, but it didn’t take effect until July 2022 after facing a legal challenge and the Supreme Court’s Roe v.
“A review of our high courts’ interpretations of ‘liberty,'” Justice Robert McBurney wrote in his ruling Monday, “demonstrates that liberty in Georgia in its meaning, protection, and set of rights includes a woman’s power to control her own body, to determine what happens to it, and to Reject government interference in health exams.”
“That power is not unlimited,” McBurney continued. “When the fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, when society assumes care and responsibility for that individual life, then – only then – can society intervene.”
The law’s fundamental change to previous state law “severely narrows the period during which women have the legal ability to terminate a pregnancy from about twenty weeks,” the judge wrote.That isviability) up to just six weeks, at which point many – if not most – women are completely unaware or unsure that they are pregnant.
The lawsuit stems from a lawsuit filed by the Sister Song Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective and other plaintiffs in 2019 shortly after Kemp signed the law into law. As it faced a legal challenge, in 2022, McBurney ruled that Act 2022 violated the US Constitution and struck it down. However, the Georgia Supreme Court quickly took up the case and allowed it to stand.
The case was sent back to McBurney, who found the law violated the state’s constitution.
“[D]Does a Georgian’s right to privacy include the right to make personal health care decisions? Apparently it does,” the judge wrote.
“For many women, their pregnancies were unexpected, unexpected, and unknown until after the fetal heartbeat began. But, according to the restrictions of the LIFE Act, it was too late: these women are now prohibited from aborting,” she said. Life-changing situations—before they know the change has happened.”
“For these women, the freedom of privacy means they have to choose whether they want to serve as human incubators for the five months leading up to survival. It’s not up to a legislator, a judge, or a commander. Handmaid’s Tale Telling these women what to do with their bodies during this time when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb, rather than society forcing them to act as human tissue banks or give up a kidney. Another,” the judge wrote.
McBurney also took aim at a piece of legislation that would allow district attorneys to access the health records of women who have had abortions in their counties.
There is no definition of “health records” in the Act. There is no explanation as to the means by which the District Collector may obtain such records: warrant, subpoena, letter of demand, email and no mention of any notice to be given to the ‘woman’ whose ‘health records’ are obtained? ‘ wrote the judge.
“Plaintiffs argue that this language unconstitutionally violates their patients’ right to privacy by empowering prosecutors to obtain private medical information without adequate process. Plaintiffs are correct,” he added.
Kemp’s office blasted the judge’s ruling.
“Once again, the will of Georgians and their representatives has been overridden by a judge’s personal beliefs. Protecting the lives of the most vulnerable among us is one of our most sacred responsibilities, and Georgia will continue to be a place of struggle for the lives of the unborn,” Kemp’s spokesman Garrison Douglas said in a statement.
Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong Women, called the ruling “a significant step in the right direction.”
“We are encouraged by the Georgia court’s ruling in favor of bodily autonomy. At the same time, we cannot forget that each day of the ban was a day longer – and we felt the devastating consequences. And the preventable deaths of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candy Miller,” Simpson said in a statement.
Thurman And Miller Two women died after experiencing complications from taking abortion pills. Their cases have been highlighted by Vice President Kamala Harris in her White House bid.
Miller, who had several health problems, was afraid to see a doctor because of the law, and Thurman was hospitalized for 20 hours before doctors decided he could legally operate on him. ProPublica reported The state board found that both deaths were preventable.
